JAN. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An ethnic Azerbaijani woman with Russian citizenship, Nurana Hasanova, was killed during an attack by an alleged member of the radical IS group on a nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve. It’s not clear ifHasanova was working at the nightclub or was visiting. At least 39 people died in the attack.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
ALMATY, DEC. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank revoked the licence of KazInvestBank, triggering concern over the stability of the Kazakh banking sector.
The Central Bank tried to play down the implications of pulling KazInvestBank’s licence but analysts said the failure of Kazakhstan’s 20th largest bank may be symptomatic of structural problems across the sector.
And, ominously, only four days earlier, on Dec. 23, sources had told Bloomberg news agency that the Central Bank had given Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s biggest bank, a $1.5b loan to maintain its cashflow.
Ratings agencies have been warning for most of 2016 that Kazakhstan’s banks were increasingly exposed to an economic downturn that has wiped 50% off the value of the tenge, flattened economic growth and dented living standards.
Oleg Smolyakov, the Kazakh Central Bank’s deputy chairman, said that KazInvestBank had allowed bad debts to build up to around 80% of its total portfolio.
“Irregularities in internal credit risk management procedures allowed borrowers with unstable situations, for example with negative equity, to build up higher debt levels and losses,” he said in a statement issued by the Central Bank.
The decision to close the bank is also an embarrassment for Daniyer Akishev who, only six months ago, said that all Kazakh banks were stable and had passed a stress test.
KazInvestBank, which is linked closely to the Kazakh elite, has declined to comment.
The banking sector in Kazakhstan is still recovering from the impact of the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis. In a matter of months, Kazakh banks had built up large chunks of bad debt. This sunk three large banks, forcing the government to step in and spend billions of dollars propping them up.
Since then the Central Bank has tried to impose checks on balances on the banking sector, but analysts have always doubted their worth.
But it’s not only the Kazakh banking sector that is under pressure. The Tajik government has announced a rescue plan for its biggest banks and in Azerbaijan a handful of smaller banks have gone bankrupt.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
JAN. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan cut gas supplies to Iran, Iranian media reported quoted Iranian officials, straining what had been considered to be a budding regional relationship. In December Turkmenistan had accused Iran of owing it $2b for unpaid gas. Iran has denied this and said that the debt had been settled or was on the way to being settled. It has now said that it will sue Turkmenistan. The row is important because relations between Iran and Turkmenistan have been improving for some time, lending weight to Turkmenistan’s mission to become a regional gas powerhouse.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Chinese company Full Gold Mining produced its first batch of concentrated gold at its Ishtamberdy gold deposit in Kyrgyzstan’s southeast region of Jalabad, the Kyrgyz government said. The project had stalled since 2011 because of a series of anti-mining protests and demonstrations against excessive Chinese control over Kyrgyzstan’s industry.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bekzhan Idrisov, editor of Radiotochka.kz, one of the leading news websites in Kazakhstan, said that he had fled the country because he increasingly feared that he would be arrested by the police on trumped-up charges.Mr Idrisov’s departure is a reminder of how under-threat many Kazakhs journalists feel. Several high-profile journalists were imprisoned in 2016.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 24/25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev visited Tashkent, a symbolic trip which highlighted the vast improvement in relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan since Islam Karimov died in September. The neighbours have been close to war but since Karimov died, Uzbek officials have appeared to change their previously antagonistic stance towards Kyrgyzstan over disputed border areas.
BISHKEK, DEC. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev delayed signing a new Eurasian Economic Union customs code, media reported, a very public signal of his frustration with the Kremlin-led group.
The code, drawn up to replace an earlier one agreed by the EEU’s predecessor the Customs Union, and a deal on foreign trade policies were supposed to have been signed by member states at a meeting in St Petersburg in a setpiece end-of-year summit.
Instead, Tigran Sarkisyan, head of the EEU’s executive unit, was forced to issue a statement explaining the delay.
“All documents were signed except the first issue on the agenda, a statement of the development of EEU trade policies, which three countries signed but Kyrgyzstan refused to sign, and the second document, the Customs Code, which three countries signed but Kyrgyzstan refused to sign,” media quoted him as saying.
Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko was absent from the meeting.
Hours later the Eurasian Economic Commission released another statement which said that Mr Atambayev had apparently signed the deals. There was no explanation on what had triggered Mr Atambayev’s change of mind.
Kyrgyzstan joined the EEU in August 2015 but has complained that the rules favor Kazakhstan and Russia and that it has lost business since joining. Local businessmen have also said the mountain of red tape has increased costs.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has unblocked news websites which have been banned for years, another sign, perhaps, of improving media and human rights in the country since the death of Islam Karimov in September. The unblocked websites include the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Eurasianet, Ferghana.ru, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
JAN. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At least nine people died when an apartment building in the town of Shakhan, near Karaganda in central Kazakhstan, collapsed. The emergency services have said that the death toll could rise. The accident shows the often dangerous state of many of the Soviet-era buildings in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon has invited his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Dushanbe, media reported, another major step towards normalising ties between the two neighbours after more than two decades of frosty relations. Since Mr Mirziyoyev took over as Uzbekistan’s leader in September, Uzbekistan has looked to improve relations with its neighbours.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
